The first major empirical goal is finding the most relevant respondents. The theory makes claims about government leaders and rebel leaders, but the most important motivations are those of rebel recruits. Truces change rebel groups primarily by influencing which recruits prefer to join and
which prefer to stay home. The relevant actors, then, are likely rebel recruits: not just those who joined but those who might join under the right conditions.
There are a few reasonable ways to make claims about these recruits’ motivations. One way to do so is to interview current and former combatants themselves, as I do Chapters 5-6. Like many other studies on rebel recruitment, I ask rebels why they joined, making comparisons between groups and over time.1 This approach makes a great deal of sense: these are the real people who decided to join, and they know a great deal about their own motivations. However, it has a major drawback as well: it excludes the people who did not join but might have under different circumstances. As a result, it can be hard to know what separates the joiners from the non-joiners.2 A second option would be to survey the general population, hoping to find a comparison group of non-joiners.3 However, it can be very hard to know who might have joined a rebel group under the right circumstances and who never would have considered it. Only a small proportion of the population ever considers joining an armed group.4 The potential recruits — those who may join a group under the right circumstances — may have very different preferences than the rest of the population.
In this experiment, I use a third strategy: identify potential recruits during the recruitment process and test what factors could hypothetically influence them to join. This strategy brings together the primary strengths of the two other strategies. Like combatant interviews, this sampling strategy specifically targets the most relevant group of respondents: those who are likely to be approached by rebel groups and might consider joining under certain circumstances. Like broader interviews, it compares joiners and non-joiners in a wide variety of circumstances, allowing me to make clear statements about what sorts of factors separate the two.
The ceasefires of Northeast India make this experiment possible. In most cases, rebels operate outside the law, so it is difficult and potentially dangerous to identify and interview rebels and
1Weinstein (2007), Forney (2015), Daly (2016), Staniland (2014), Oppenheim et al. (2015)
2Depending on the question being asked, this technique may effectively select on the dependent variable.
3Humphreys and Weinstein (2008), Lyall, Blair and Imai (2013), Morgan (2016)
4Mueller (2000)
recruits. The ceasefires, however, have made it semi-legal for rebel groups to operate and recruit.
Even in movements with no ceasefire, the ceasefires mean that rebel activities are much more visible and openly discussed in the general population. This makes it much safer to observe and replicate the rebel recruitment process.5 I have talked to dozens of civilians about how they decided whether or not to join a rebel group and have even sat in a de facto rebel recruitment center.6
Despite this safety, however, rebel recruitment has changed little since the ceasefires. Rebel groups still generally recruit from the same populations and use the same basic techniques, albeit somewhat more publicly. Most importantly, though, recruitment still carries real stakes for armed organizations and would-be militants. The rebel groups in ethnic Assamese and Bodo areas are still actively fighting the government despite the relative openness of the recruitment process. The ceasefire groups, meanwhile, are often involved in negotiations with the government, leveraging the strength of their rank-and-file soldiers to pursue policy concessions. Rebel groups also rely on their military strength to collect taxes and patrol territory. All of these require a large number of committed soldiers who will act on behalf of organizational interests.
Along with local research assistants, I designed and implemented a sampling strategy based on how rebel recruiters actually court new recruits. By replicating these recruitment tactics, I gathered a group of potential recruits — young people who are not yet rebels but are highly likely to be approached by rebel recruiters and would consider joining under the right circumstances. The activity, in other words, is a decision-maker survey: it poses questions to those who are currently facing the decision of whether to join an armed group. The strategies, therefore, were designed to select likely recruits rather than gather a representative sample of the population.
My research team — twenty-something locals of the same ethnicity as respondents — ap-proached these subjects in two types of locations. First, the team visited a host of ethnic com-munity organizations. These groups, common across Northeast India, are somewhat deceptively
5This experiment, along with the case interviews, were approved by the Columbia Institutional Review Board under Protocol AAAP6257. I was extremely cautious not to put my assistants or respondents in harm’s way, consulting both local experts and my assistants at each stage.
6Specifically, it was an empty house owned by a rebel leader in which rebels and recruits bonded over rice-beer.
called “student associations,” but mostly consist of non-student young adults.7 Student associa-tions are primarily community service groups, organizing volunteers for public works projects and events. But they also organize protests and strikes for local political causes such as corruption, immigration, and disaster relief. As with most social organizations in Northeast India, each ethnic group has their own student associations, and sub-ethnic tribes have separate sub-organizations within the broader associations. Critically, student associations in this context are unaffiliated with any political or militant organization, and they often go out of their way to avoid appearing politi-cal. However, because so many idealistic young men hang around the offices of these associations, they serve as a convenient pool of recruits for rebel groups. Many militants I interviewed were student association volunteers when they first were approached by rebel recruiters. The research team contacted association organizers in advance and visited the offices of these organizations, both in large towns and smaller villages.
Second, my research team approached young men in local gathering places: along the side of the road, at small tea shops and moonshiners, near the offices of local legislators, and in local sports stadiums (when there were no public events there). Northeast India, like many conflict-affected regions, suffers from substantial youth unemployment and underemployment. As a result, many young men idle in public places during the day. Some of these young men are hoping for work opportunities — legal or otherwise — while others are just there for the social life. As a result, members of rebel organizations are known to spend substantial time in these locations, talking up their employers to potential recruits. Accordingly, the research team visited these locations to interview young people hanging around.
In each recruitment location, my research team identified and approached men who are likely to be targeted by rebel groups and consider joining.8 First, my team of three research assistants would enter the location and look for men between the ages of 18 and 40. The vast majority of rebel
7The student associations included, among others, sub-groups of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), All Bodo Students Union (ABSU), and Naga Students Federation (NSF).
8This approach was practiced extensively along with me in a week-long training session. However, I was only present for a handful of actual surveys because we agreed my presence would likely affect respondents’ answers.
recruits in the region fit into this demographic, so it was more appropriate than a wider sampling approach. Second, each assistant would approach a young man, and ask whether they would be willing to speak about Naga / Assamese / Bodo politics (which is understood to include the rebel movements), and offer a small gift for the respondent’s time. This approach was intended to tap into the twin motivations for joining a rebel group described in the theory: interest in regional politics and material gain. Third, the first battery of questions included whether the person agreed that their group should have independence from India (or statehood in the case of Bodoland).
Because this is the basic goal of the rebel movement, this question was consistently interpreted by both enumerators and respondents as asking a necessary condition for ever joining an armed group. All three of these steps were meant to draw in likely recruits — people who are likely to be approached by rebels and ever consider joining — and screen out others.
The research assistants, three co-ethnic twenty-somethings in each region, would initiate the conversation in the regional language (Assamese or Nagamese). For English-speaking respondents (English is the language of schooling in the region), the interview was conducted in English with occasional explanations in the regional language. For non-English-speakers, the interview was translated by enumerators to the regional language.9 The interviews were conducted one-on-one in as private a place as was feasible in the environments. Research assistants invited the respondent to sit at a separate table or bench out of earshot from others, and often bought tea for the respondent as part of the conversation.